


In Hindsight

by wednesdaythunder



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Additional Tags May Be Added, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, Maes Hughes Lives, Not beta read we die like women, Slow Burn, Time Travel Fix-It, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28029711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesdaythunder/pseuds/wednesdaythunder
Summary: “No,” Ed groaned, dragging his hand across his face. “I was in some small ass village up north, had just gotten my hands on this old Drachman book and I was curious so I drew out the array it described just to visualise. Then the floor went out, I fell through, but probably still holding the paper and it went off, I guess.” He gestured with his hand as to say, ‘you know how it goes’.“Okay... several anomalies with this, brother,” Al pointed out carefully.“I bet.” Ed steeled himself, then looked back at Al with resolution. “This will sound crazy... but I think I travelled back in time? Because suddenly you’re back in that damn armour, and I’m in Central even though I haven’t been in this cursed city for about three years and I was really hoping to avoid it for at least two more, you know, make it a nice five, and fuckinghell,Al, I’m twenty-six, yet Maria just scolded me like a teenager. Though to be fair, I was a fool-hardy teen butnot anymore!”…Just another time travel fic because I can’t get enough of ‘em.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 84
Kudos: 491





	1. No Time like the Past

**Author's Note:**

> So I had the thought of "but what if the time travelling Ed reveals himself as such pretty much out of the gate?" Because honestly, I don't think Ed could keep such a big secret from Al for long, and fanfics are all about fun what-if's anyway!

Slowly coming to, Ed found himself staring at the ceiling. It was not a particularly interesting sight in itself: big white block tailings, illuminated by the sunshine seeping in through the nearby window, rather than the ceiling lamp in the middle of the room. No, this ceiling was the dictionary definition of standard, unassuming and boring—which made it all the more frightening. By all accounts, this plain, white ceiling was as inconspicuous as could be, but it was that very fact that off-set him. When Ed had closed his eyes as he slipped into oblivion—which he had been pretty sure he would re-emerge from—this was not the last thing he saw. No, that ceiling had been dark, wooden, and with a hole in it. Also, located in small ass cabin in the middle of the Drachman woods, worn out by years and years of simply sitting there, exposed to the elements, seemingly abandoned and forgotten. No one had known that Ed had been there; civilisation had been days away. When the floor buckled under Ed’s feet and he fell down into a hidden basement and felt the all-too-familiar sensation on getting impaled, Ed all but resigned himself to this fate. He somewhat recalled a soft light from somewhere around him, and then nothing at all.

So, all in all, Ed was incredibly confused, and quite honestly a little loopy. Something felt distinctly wrong with him—or maybe not wrong, per say, but _different_. As he tried to sit up properly, he noticed his right arm not responding, but he didn’t feel any pain in it. In fact, it felt numb, much like back when...

... it was an out of body experience when he looked down at himself, and saw his old automail arm, attached to his body, lying there motionless beside him. What. The. _Fuck._ This wasn’t his body—surely, he was hallucinating or something!

Distantly, he noticed that he was becoming short of breath, mostly likely hyperventilating, so he clenched his fist ~~his only fist oh god don’t think about it!~~ and closed his eyes, trying to listen to the sounds around him.

He could hear people walking outside the room, presumably up and down a corridor, normal hospital sounds. He focused on that, trying to count steps and guess how many people were beyond the door, anything to distract himself from the now, really.

Then the door opened and Ed opened his eyes and say Denny Brosh of all goddamn people poke his head in. Even _weirder_ was how Maria Ross seemed to be there too, following him inside. What the hell indeed.

“Ah, mister Edward!” Brosh exclaimed. “You can sit up now?” What the fuck was he doing, calling him _mister?!_

“Where am I?” Ed asked, but his stomach twisted as he heard his own voice echo in his head. It too was _wrong._ It was lighter... _younger._ Looking at Brosh and Ross—at their shoulders specifically—dread started to fill Ed like acid corroding his innards, staring in his stomach.

“It’s a private hospital, Second Lieutenant knows the owner. There would be so many questions at a military hospital, so we thought...” Brosh trailed off, the dread inside of Ed spreading.

Oh God, let this be a hallucination, this couldn’t be real. It really _couldn’t._

“The... fifth lab?” Ed hesitated. The memories of the lab were fresh, as if they had really happened yesterday, but he wasn’t sure that he was right. He didn’t _want_ to be right.

“Well, you see... it was blown up by somebody and there’s nothing left of it,” Ross said gently, just like Ed had hoped she wouldn’t.

“For _fucks sake!_ ” he roared, uselessly punching the sheet beside him. This couldn’t be happening! He couldn’t be reliving this freaking random-ass moment from his past—only he fucking _was._

Like actors following a script, Ross and Brosh went through the motions as Ed remembered them: they stiffened, declared their formal apology in advance followed by Ross slapping the shit out of him. He knew it was coming but it still stung like a motherfucker. Much more than any damn hallucination would—he was unfortunate enough to know the difference. But the slap did kick his brain in gear, and he realised what was _actually_ important.

“Al,” he whispered. “Where is he?” Because if Ed was here and this was the time and place that he thought it was then... oh _God._

Ross and Brosh were still standing there stiffly and now also confused, much to Ed’s frustration.

“Yes, you’re right, we were irresponsible, we should have trusted you more, don’t worry about the slap, good talk, I need to see Alphonse _now_ ,” Ed said hurriedly.

“I, eh, saw him in the corridor I think?” Brosh told him. “Want me to get him?”

“Doubt you’re gonna let me get him myself so yeah, please,” Ed replied. Something must have crossed his face because Brosh was out of the room with only a nod in confirmation, while Ross looked Very Concerned.

“I need to talk to my brother alone for a while,” Ed said, looking down at his limb automail. “Something happened between loosing consciousness and waking up, and he might be able to clear a few things up for me.” Not really a lie, but not the entire truth either. Ed didn’t actually want to see Al at all because he _wouldn’t_ be seeing him and that thought alone was twisting his soul in agony.

“Major...” Ross started but Ed interjected with a scoff.

“Ross, or fuck, Maria if you’ll permit—you’ve slapped me across the face and saved my life in the last 24 hours. I think we can drop the formalities.” He raised an eyebrow, daring her to fight him on his.

She seemed to get it though and gave him a warm smile. “I think I can work with that,” she said, just as Brosh and Al entered.

Nothing could have prepared him for seeing the animated armour walk through the door, like right out of his nightmares and Ed found himself _very_ thankful that he was in a bed.

Last time he’d seen Al was about two months ago, they had met up in Dublith since they were both passing through. Al on his way back to Xing since he had just been in Central, while Ed had been coming from the Creta and was going to head North to Drachma at the damn Royal courts ~~demand~~ invitation. They’d only spent two days together. Al had been anxious to see Mei again, he had even shown Ed a design for a ring that he was going to transmutate right in front of her because Al was a damn romantic and thought that proving his mastery of alchestry was the best way to pop that particular question (not that Ed could say anything beyond well wishes and a gentle tease or two—he didn’t have a romantic bone in his body, and he _was_ genuinely excited for Al, so yeah).

But now he was standing right in front of him, no longer fucking corporeal but instead a soul bound to metal in a damn circle of destiny. Ed’s greatest regret, staring back at him.

“... brother?” Al’s echo-y voice took him back to the actual room. “You needed to see me?” Damn he sounded worried and if memory served right (and Ed _knew_ it did, this fight they had was one he’d be hard-pressed to forget) Al was in the middle of his own damn breakdown, thinking his whole existence was a lie and shit. Well join the club, brother.

“Right,” Ed said just for the sake of saying something, but then only proceeded to look at Ross, silently begging her to take control of the situation.

Blessed woman that she was, she got it right away and swiftly dragged Brosh out of the room, leaving Ed alone with Al to try and sort out the dilemma of _where the fuck do I start?!_

He could feel the panic rippling through him again, though try as he might to push it down, he still ended up curling into a sitting ball on the bed, with his knees drawn up and his _only_ arm hugging them tightly. In fact, he was so damn out of it that he didn’t hear Al’s clunky approach until he felt cold metal touch his back, which only startled him and he looked up at the expressionless armour that held his brothers soul.

“I’m so sorry,” he whimpered. His sight was clouding, distantly he registered that he must be fucking crying which oh God he couldn’t even _recall_ last time that had happened, but none of that was really important. Al was, and he was going through some tough shit and Ed needed to be there for him.

“What are you apologising for?” Al asked carefully, gently but reserved, either because of his own thoughts or Ed’s odd expression, he couldn’t tell.

“I... kept wanting to ask you, but I was to chicken to actually do it... if you resented me, for what I did to you,” Ed said in a rush. “It’s my fault you’re stuck in that armour, can’t sleep or eat or anything and I... I’m so fucking stupid, making you go through this all fucking over again!” he roared, his emotions running away from him, from sadness and distraught to a flaming anger at himself. First, he fucking cursed his own brother to live like that, and then he was an absolute idiot and carelessly shot himself through goddamn space and time, undoing all the hard work and sacrifices of everyone he cared about. A grade A idiot, he was.

Beside him, Al shifted. He needed some oil for his joint, Ed remembered the tell-tale sound with a haunting clarity. When Al didn’t reply for a while, Ed took a deep breath and looked back up at his brother.

“I know what you were thinking before you came in here,” he told him, trying to keep his voice steady even though he was still fucking crying. Did you get more emotional with age or something? He _never_ reacted like this to hardship before. Or maybe all his teenage rage had simply drained out of him and left a doleful (supposed) adult behind without him even noticing until know.

“W-what do you mean?” Al stuttered.

“You got it in your head that I faked your memories. All of them. Every single fight? All that time spent with Winry and Granny too?” He wiped his tears and sat up straight, looking into Al’s glowing eyes. “I don’t think I have the imagination to come up with all of that, and let’s be real, do you honestly think that a delirious eleven-year-old sorta amputee has the freaking forethought to pull all of that off? _Way_ too much credit, I tell ya’.”

“I—but how would you even...?” Al said, clearly confused.

“You still haven’t answered though, and I mean I didn’t ask properly but dammit, this is fucking hard,” Ed cut him off, his heart beating in his ears. “Do you hate me? Truthfully. You never straight up answered, and I didn’t want to linger on my own shit...” he trailed off.

“ _No!_ ” Al shouted, his voice ringing through his metal shell like a church bell. “Half of the things you’re saying makes no sense and I have no clue what made you so insightful all the sudden but I—even just now, with all these thoughts swirling around in my head I... it was never about you. You were just so suspicious, and then with all that Barry said, I... I let paranoia get the best of me.” He sat down by Ed’s feet his tall frame still looming over Ed in the afternoon sun shining through the window. But he seemed much less gloomy than Ed remembered him being the first time around, and despite it all, this was Al—his mere presence calmed Ed tremendously.

“I’m not really sure what to think about anything,” Al told him. “But I know that I could never blame you for this. You gave away your arm to save me...”

“I also kept pushing us to try and bring mum back in the first place. You hesitated so many times and I kept insisting because I’m a stubborn brat.”

“… Wow, you’re really deep into this pool of deprivation you’ve got going on,” Al noted lightly to Ed’s amusement.

“You don’t even know half of it, kiddo,” Ed chuckled. He felt very old all the sudden; not 26 like he was supposed to be, but rather more like 62 or something, at least in comparison to Al he had lived so much longer. Knew things that only time and experience gave.

“I’m staring to realise that,” Al agreed readily. “Did something happen to you between the lab and now that I missed?”

Oh boy did it ever. “I need pen and paper,” he said instead, which Al thankfully had nearby. Ed started by drawing a diagonal line across it, while Al seemed to take note of which hand he was using.

“Your automail...” he murmured.

“Busted. I’ll have to call Winry later, but not know.” He focused on drawing the array from his memory; he had always been rather good at memorising them, but he was careful and beyond breaking it with the diagonal line he didn’t close the circle, all to make sure it wouldn’t spontaneously activate. _Again._ “What does this look like?” he asked Al when he was done, handing the paper over.

“Broken?”

“Duh. Beyond that.”

“It... it looks like it’s about some kind of immaterial matter? I’d say like souls, but more like a related immateriality, like... space?” Al lowered the paper and looked back at him.

“Souls you say,” Ed echoed, looking down at the paper between them. “That... might just be it. I must have accidentally activated it when I fell through the floor or something, even it should be impossible… I thought it was about space, potentially teleportation if it could be linked up properly... but I definitely didn’t realise the similarity to a human transformation circle.”

“Wait, it activated accidentally? Were you far away from it or something?” Al asked.

“No, I was touching it, but it’s impossible that _I_ activated it,” Ed insisted.

“Surely you could have—” Al started but Ed cut him off again.

“No. Trust me on this one. I couldn’t have.”

“Okay...” Al said, though not without scepticism. “And you found this array in the lab?”

“No,” Ed groaned, dragging his hand across his face. “I was in some small ass village up north, had just gotten my hands on this old Drachman book and I was curious so I drew out the array it described just to visualise. Then the floor went out, I fell through, but probably still holding the paper and it went off, I guess.” He gestured with his hand as to say, ‘you know how it goes’.

“Okay... several anomalies with this, brother,” Al pointed out carefully.

“I bet.” Ed steeled himself, then looked back at Al with resolution. “This will sound crazy... but I think I travelled back in time? Because suddenly you’re back in that damn armour, and I’m in Central even though I haven’t been in this cursed city for about three years and I was really hoping to avoid it for at least two more, you know, make it a nice five, and fucking _hell,_ Al, I’m twenty-six, yet Maria just scolded me like a teenager. Though to be fair, I was a fool-hardy teen but _not anymore!_ ”

“ _Brother_ ,” Al called out, shutting him up. “This all sounds you had a fever dream or something,” he tried to reason. “You just woke up, maybe should just stay calm for a while.”

“I’ll calm down once you believe me—and _believe me_ , it’s fucking tearing me apart to see you like this again,” Ed said.

“You mean that... we figure out how to get our bodies back?” Al whispered, clearly trying and failing to keep his hope down.

“Yeah, we figured it out,” Ed told him.

“ _How?_ ”

Ed sighed and leaned back onto the headboard of the bed. “So many twists and turns. Best not get into it now, but needless to say, when Marco said ‘the truth beyond the truth,’ he was hinting at more than even he could imagine. This shit runs deep, Al. So fucking deep. Like, fuck, Führer Bradley is a goddamn homunculus. The entire top of the military is in on this, they’re gonna turn Amestris into a massive philosopher stone, so that the goddamn first homunculus can try to become god. I mean, he failed then and he’ll fucking fail this time too, Al, but holy hell.”

“That’s... a lot,” Al said carefully.

Ed scoffed. “Tell me ‘bout it.”

“It’s pretty hard to believe you, brother, I must admit.”

“I’d be concerned if you just took my word for everything to be honest; I must sound absolutely crazy. I’m sorry,” Ed added.

Al laid a cold hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. “But you also wouldn’t say any of this if you didn’t believe it yourself. And it sounds like you may have some ways to prove at least parts of it all, so... let’s start with that, yeah?”

“You’re absolutely brilliant, Alphonse. The best of the best.”

“Flattery is not gonna convince me of anything,” he said playfully.

“Flattery! It’s the goddamn _truth,_ shut up and accept my sincerity, brat!” Ed roared back, just as playfully.

The door opened with Ross on the other side.

“I head shouting so I figured it’s either fine or necessary to come inside,” she said.

“Nothing gets past you, eh?” Ed said.

Ross smiled. “I’d like to think so.”

Al and Brosh seemed a little thrown by the sudden informality between them, not from Ed’s part but from Maria. Ed wouldn’t have given much of a damn about placating their confusion at sixteen and he sure as hell hadn’t grown out of his unwillingness for social convention just yet, so he just moved on with what actually mattered to him.

“When can I expect Armstrong and Hughes knocking down the door?” he asked.


	2. Some Confessions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *pops out of my hiding hole*  
> *dumps update at your feet*  
> *blink and I'm gone*

Even though Ed knew in abstract the beats and movements of the moment in time he was currently living through, it still felt weird and new to him. A constant sense of déjà vu where he was both doing something for the first time, yet also achingly familiar. In part, he wondered what would happen to time now that he had changed it—in some ways accidentally and in others not so accidentally. Sure, on a base level, one should never mess with time, that was a given. But he could not change where he was—or rather _when_ he was—and what he knew. He could and he _would_ save those he had let down the first time around, starting with Hughes.

… but Hughes only showed up after Winry had…

With a tremendous amount of dread, Ed picked up the phone and punched in the number. She answered after four rings.

“Rockabell Automail, how can I help you?” Winry’s pleasant, unassuming voice came through the speaker. Ed felt like throwing up.

“Hey Win...” he said in a slow drawl.

“Ed! You don’t usually call, what’s up?” She sounded happy ~~why wouldn’t she??~~ and Ed was struck by just how much he _missed_ her. _Had been_ missing her for years, really, now that her visceral disappointment with him was nowhere to be found. It was enough to make a man cry, but he had a conversation to get through.

“Yeah... so I might need you to come to Central. I’m kinda in need of my mechanic.”

“... oh.”

 _What?_ That was _not_ the tone he expected her to take. He was prepared for a tongue lashing, not for her to sound _guilty_ all a sudden!

“You okay?” he asked because this was not what he was expecting and he rather be on the same page as her.

“Yeah, yeah, I, eh, what happened?” she dodged the question, but he let it slide for now.

“Please don’t get too mad,” there was no way she wouldn’t get a little mad, he knew that, “but I was kinda in a fight and, ah, I think the other guy got me good because my arm stopped working.”

She was quiet for a moment and he sat frozen waiting her response. While it was probably just a few seconds it still felt like minutes before she said, “Then what happened?” in a forced neutral tone that he knew all too well. Something was not right.

“I got him if that’s what you’re asking,” Ed tried to spare her the details, remembering how she had not taken well to finding him in a hospital. “But, eh, some alchemy bullshit came out’a nowhere and knocked me out so, eh, I got taken to the hospital. _I’m fine_ ,” he rushed to add, “nothing major, but I’d like to get all my limbs back on track, heh,” he ended with a chuckle.

“Okay, I’ll take the first train I can.” She still had that tone. Either it was her being younger or him just being so used to it, maybe a combination of both, but he could tell she was pushing down her emotions, though he _really_ didn’t understand why.

“Winry,” he cut off the rushed goodbye that she had started spewing onto him. Now, that he had her attention, however, he didn’t know what to do with it. He reminded himself that this was a younger Winry than the one he was used to, but also Winry all the same. And something was clearly going on that she was trying to hide from him.

He didn’t like this at all; his insides felt twisted, but he pushed himself anyway. So, he straight up asked: “Is something wrong?”

She immediately denied it, but the shrill tone of her voice was not fooling anyone.

“Don’t bullshit me, Win, you’re not good at it,” he said, interrupting her ramble.

“What do you _mean_ ‘not good’, huh?! I’ll have you know that a childhood with you two has made me an _excellent_ bullshiter!” she hollered over the phone, making him crack up.

“Oh yeah, clearly! But at least you sound like yourself again,” he added.

“Put a sock in it, you dweeb,” she said. “It’s just… I thought that… if your arm failed while you were fighting and you’re in hospital then… it failing put you there…” she admitted in small bursts.

“Honestly, I would probably have ended up here regardless, it was a really strong opponent, and then someone blew up the building we were in and well, yeah… I mean, please don’t blame yourself! I probably overextended myself!” he added in a hurry.

Winry still sounded hesitant over the phone but he thought he had managed to avoid most worst-case scenarios.

Just like before, Winry arrived some time later, and Armstrong was kind enough to fetch her and bring her back to the hospital. Much like before, Winry paled when she saw his bandages, but at least she didn’t seem to blame herself for his injuries.

 _Unlike_ before, Al was not completely absent, brooding in dark corridors, but instead greeted Winry happily and stayed in the room together with Borsh while she worked on Ed’s arm. The scene filled him with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia; it had been years since the three of them had been at the same place all together. For a second, Ed wondered why it had been so, but then he remembered and his good mood turned sour all too fast. It must had shown on his face because Winry took one look at him, glanced down where he sat in bed and then asked,

“Are you good for a little walk? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about,” she said all casual-like, to which Ed gave a quick “Yep,” in response and was out of his bed before Borsh could even think of saying anything about it.

Ed ended up leading them to the roof. He remembered fighting Al there before; there had been sheets drying in the wind then, but today the washing stands were bare. The sky was just as blue, however.

“Was there actually something you wanted to talk about or…?” he asked after the silence between them dragged on.

“You looked like you wanted to get out of there all the sudden, so I just…” she gestured with her hands.

“Nothing gets past you, eh?” He smirked a little when she scoffed. But then her face turned serious and she pinned him with such a look that Ed was seriously contemplating the pros and cons of jumping over the railing he was leaning against.

“What’s going on with you, Ed? I saw you just a few months ago but that feels more like it was years, now.” He tried to keep from wincing at her words as she kept talking. “You… you seem almost war-torn.”

Part of him thought it was unfair that she could just see through him like this, which in turn made him wonder just how much and how often Winry would notice these kinds of things and just not say anything about it… but another part was almost relieved that she had noticed. That she could look at him and she that something was wrong, often way before he would ever be willing to admit it to himself, and that she still had the energy to call him out on it.

Ever since he and Al had left to get their bodies back, there had been a kind of power imbalance between them, where Winry was kept in the dark of so much. She had spent years after the Promised Day dragging confessions out of him; of how he got each scar, of the choices he had, the mistakes he made. And after she heard it all, she still managed to look at him.

Still, Ed didn’t think it would be a good idea to unload _everything_ onto her right there and then—in fact, he was pretty confident in that he really shouldn’t. But there was one thing that he really ought to tell her… specifically.

Confessions were a lot like boiling water, in a way. Let it brew for long enough without lifting the lid and it would boil over, making a mess.

“If I… Can you… _fuck_ this is hard,” Ed muttered, looking over the horizon instead, like he would find the words he needed to say somewhere over there. _Not likely_ , he told himself. “I, ah, I’m not gonna say much of anything you wanna hear, and I am sorry about that, _really_ , I am, but, fuck, okay, there’s one thing that I haven’t told a soul.” He chanced a glance at her.

Winry looked surprised more than anything. “… not even Al?” she asked quietly and he shook his head, then turned his eyes back over the rooftops, his hands clenching the railing.

“Fuck, I’m just gonna say it—I’m gay.”

She was silent, and he refused to look at her. After an eternity shoved into the span of about a minute, she finally spoke.

“How… how do you know that?” she asked.

Now, that was just unsensitive. “How do _you_ know you like guys?” he shot back, giving her a dirty look.

She seemed to short circuit for a moment, which honestly was pretty funny. Ed realised that he should probably cut her _some_ slack since this pretty much came out of nowhere for her and she was a 15-year-old girl with little romantic experience.

Just as he was coming around to that, Winry found her footing again, quick in the turns as always. “Sorry,” she said gently. “It was just not what I expected you to say… but I guess that’s why you said it.”

He hmmed in response.

“How long have you kept it to yourself?”

“Too long, probably.” He sighed. “And you gotta promise to keep it to yourself, okay?”

“Okay,” she said and smiled gently at him and just like that, a weight of a thousand tons lifted from his shoulders and evaporated into the afternoon sky.

“Thanks.”

He wasn’t really sure which one of them initiated it but moments later they were hugging. It was great.

… until Winry reared back with an intense look on her face.

“But wait! I retract my sorry! How did you realise you’re into guys?!” she all but hissed into his face. “Was there a particular guy?? _Tell me!_ ”

“Oh my fucking god Winry, I’m not gonna talk about _boys_ with you!”

“ _Why not!_ ”

“Have you met me?! What part of my personality seems like it would be game for that, huh?”

“What’s the point of telling me if we’re not gonna talk about the fun parts of it, Ed?” she shot back like a goddamn wisecrack. Oh god, he had created a monster.

“You’re coming around to this way too fast, Winry,” he told her and she only scoffed.

“Hey! I—” was all she managed to say before the sound of doors swinging open cut her off and they both turned to see Hughes’ bright smile.

“Hey, Ed! You getting it on with a woman on the hospital roof?” he hollered for all of central to hear.

“You fucking wish!” Ed hollered back, despite his embarrassment. Al, Maria and Borsh all spilled out after Hughes. Meanwhile, Winry looked just about gobsmacked, though she came out of it the second she looked back at him, at which point they both broke out in giggles. Ed felt like they were kids in a classroom, trying to hide their laugh from the teacher together.

Not one to be left out of the loop, Hughes was swiftly upon them. “Now what are you too snickering about?” he asked lightly.

“Your impeccable timing, clearly,” Ed said. “Anyway, Hughes, this is my childhood friend and mechanic, Winry. Winry, Lieutenant Colonel Hughes.”

While Winry and Hughes went through the same motions of shaking hands and introducing themselves, Ed actually looked at Hughes properly.

He didn’t know why, but somehow it _didn’t_ feel like looking at a ghost. Of course Hughes was alive, he saw him just a week ago when he had hired and dragged off Sheska for a lifetime of servitude, _of course._ Yet that seemed so odd, because Ed also remembered—vividly—just how it felt reading about his death in the newspaper. Remembered Mustang’s rage, and his literally burning vengeance.

But Hughes was looking at him and so where Winry and Al so clearly Ed needed to get out of his head and back into the present.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” he asked, pointedly looking down at Hughes casual clothes.

“Hehe, well I’m off duty from the afternoon.” He smirked.

“How? Didn’t you say that the tribunal’s been really busy lately since the whole library thing?”

“No need to worry! I left the overtime work for Sheska to do.”

… and so it went on, like actors following a script, even though the setting was slightly changed. Hughes delivered his news about Scar, accidentally jogging Ed’s memory and making him realise that he had to figure out what to do with _that_ whole mess, and Hughes left, dragging Winry along with him. Only this time, Ed waved and smirked maniacally at Winry as she left.

“Good talk?” Al asked him as they walked back to his hospital room.

“You could say so, I think,” he replied.


	3. Trust in Sincerity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the amazing response! I’m completely blown away by all the kudos and comments and it have brought me such genuine joy <3
> 
> Now, enjoy my liberal use of italics and dashes

Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes was a hurricane rather a person, but a kind one at that Winry thought. He was a family man through and through, with a warm home and warmer smiles. Not to mention the cutest kid that Winry had ever had the pleasure to meet. She was so. cute! Winry had to keep herself from just gobbling her up!

When the birthday celebrations that she had accidentally stumbled into wound down, she sat down with the delightful gumdrop of a birthday girl in her lap, talking to the man of the hour. It was just that kind of setting where Winry found herself finally ‘land’ so to speak, slowly chewing over all the events of the day. And Hughes—well. He proved himself to be an amazing listener.

“It’s just so frustrating sometimes, you know? Caring about those two,” Winry found herself saying, looking down at Elysia who was enraptured with her new mouse toy. “There’s so many things they’re not saying. Ever since they left to get their bodies back, I barely hear from any of them, and then Ed just calls out of the blue and I find him in hospital with his automail… it was new, but it had scratches and marks all over it. Makes you wonder just what they’re up to, but they both barely tell me anything about themselves. Or so I thought, at least, ‘til Ed dragged me up on the roof and told me something that I… I don’t know what to think about, to be honest. I didn’t even believe him at first, but he got so defensive so I went along and… realised that he really meant it. So now I just have to believe him, even if I don’t understand it, and I just keep asking myself why he felt like _I_ needed to know, like he knew something I didn’t.”

“You’ll have to forgive them, just a little,” Hughes said gently. “They thought you’d understand them without having to put words on it. Men are the type that speak through actions rather than words, and they probably don’t wanna burden you with their problems, want to keep you from worrying. As for what Ed did tell you, well, you said yourself that you were surprised to hear it, so he probably realised that it was one of those few things that he had to put into words. As for why you, it’s because he trusts you.”

Winry found her arms tightening around Elysia as Hughes’ words sank in. Ed _had_ told her something that not even Al knew. Sharing something about himself that must have been both hard to say, and hard to carry in secret. In all likelihood, she thought, he had realised that he… was gay… after he and Al had left Resembool, and their journey to get their bodies back hadn’t really been smooth sailing, judging by their, well, _everything_ , so if Ed hadn’t told _Al_ then he had probably kept this all inside himself for God knows how long! Yet he told Winry, even though it was obviously hard for him, and he had seemed so happy when she had said that it was okay.

And it _was_ okay. In fact, it was more than okay—it was great! She had been intrusted with something tentative and precious, and she would do her damnedest to support Ed and prove to them both that she was worthy of his trust.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right, it wouldn’t have been my first guess,” she told Hughes with a smile, just as a few boys came up to them and asked to play with Elysia.

* * *

It had been a few days since his brother had woken up after their incident at the fifth laboratory and told Alphonse that he was a time traveller. If Al was completely honest with himself—and he did endeavour to hold himself to such a standard—he still had his doubts about Ed’s claim. It was true that his brother _had_ spoken directly to the disastrous thoughts that had plagued Al at the time, and thoroughly dissuaded him from thinking that his whole existence was a lie… but that and time travel had a few more steps between them. At the same time, Al felt kind of awkward in asking for more confirmation. Something _had_ clearly changed in Ed just after the lab and his behaviour was a little different. Not that Al suspected him to be a fake or anything; it was still clearly his brother in that hospital bed, but Ed seemed calmer. Less prone to anger, though vastly more melancholic. Al wished to ask about that in particular, but he was unsure of how Ed would react to his probing.

Al found himself rather blindsided then, when Ed brought up the subject of time travel completely unprompted.

“Al, I really needa talk to you about the timeline of things. Like, what should I say, who should I tell? Should I tell you? I feel like I needa tell you at least some things because I will inevitably end up making decisions that will make very little sense without my... benefit of hindsight,” Ed said the morning after Winry had arrived in town, while eating his breakfast.

“Oh! Ah...” Al floundered a little, at a loss of how to respond to that. “I don’t really know, brother,” he settled on, as it was his general state of mind at large anyway. “Any previous timeline of yours will in part already been changed by the virtue of you already knowing it, though, so I wouldn’t put too much stock in keeping it together,” he added.

“Yeah, you’re right—and there’s some things that I’m _definitely_ gonna change now that I have another chance... but I still don’t know what to tell people. How do I explain that I suddenly know a lot more about a lot of things without explaining how, and still expect them to believe me?” Ed asked.

Al didn’t really have a good answer. He stood by what he had told Ed when it was first brought up: he believed that _Ed_ believed that he was time traveling, but he was still working on actually believing in the time travel itself.

“Perhaps the best way lies somewhere in between,” Al mused out loud. “Trying to be as honest and give as relevant information as possible, but still keeping some things to yourself. Not lying about how you know, but maybe not telling either?”

“That certainly is the most diplomatic solution,” Ed said, giving Al a wry smile. “I’m surprised you’re just going along with it and not hassling me about it, though,” he added, gently calling Al out.

“Ah, well, I, er, you see..!”

His brother just laughed. “Relax, kiddo,” he tried assuring, honest-to-God whipping a tear out of his eye, “I’m just messing with ya’ a little. You make it so damn easy. But in all honesty,” he said, tone shifting, “for the sake of our brotherhood, not to mention the future, I think we should establish some things. Or, well, I should say this out loud, anyway.”

Ed shifted in his seat, disregarding his breakfast completely and turning fully towards Alphonse.

“Don’t hesitate to ask me shit, Al, _ever._ If I can’t or don’t wanna tell you I’ll say so, okay? You’re like the only person in the world who I trust won’t ask stupid questions—and even if you do then it’s probably just because I was stupid by making you ask in the first place. You with me?”

“Yes, brother.”

“Sooo... wanna know something?”

“Brother... so many things, but… I have to be honest too. I, um, have my doubts about the whole thing. I’m not sure if I believe you really travelled through time, but I trust that that’s what _you_ think happened,” Al told him. It felt harsh to go against Ed so, nevertheless, Al couldn’t keep his thoughts to himself either.

He wasn’t sure what reaction he was expecting from his brother, but somehow a shrug and a casual “That’s fair,” he got seemed the most outlandish.

Where did the conversation go from there? He had half hoped, half dreaded this talk, yet brother made no move to explain himself and convince Al. Instead, a tense silence that only Al seemed bothered by fell upon them and lasted until he couldn’t take it no more.

“Aren’t you gonna defend yourself?” he asked, caving.

“How?” So typical of him to answer a question with a question, and with one word at that!

“Brother!”

“Chill, Al,” Ed chuckled; he seemed to find this whole thing funny! “I’m serious—how would I do that? I don’t want to spoil more than I have to and I’m still stuck in this room for a few days. Like, if I tried, it would just be my word against nothing and since you have your doubts already, it won’t do much.”

“That… makes sense.” Al sighed.

“I’ll say this, though. I am going to bring your body back, I fucking _promise_ you. You can call me a time traveller then, since I figured it out already,” he said, his eyes burning with that boundless conviction that Al so admired about him. But then he sighed and looked down, contemplating something.

“I’ll… need a little more time, however. I’m sorry. I’m uncertain if this time travel will have messed with my gate and I won’t be able to bring you back the way I did the last time. I need more time to look into it and...” Brother seemed to realise something as he stopped talking in the middle of a sentence. A complicated set of emotions flashed across Ed’s face, faster than Al could read them, and he settled on something akin to grieving yet gleeful. “I needa visit teacher,” he said with way more thrill than that statement should ever be accompanied by.

“… I was thinking that we probably had to sometime soon—but you sound way too excited, brother!”

“Oh, she’s _definitely_ gonna kill us! But it’s been a while and nothing gets good research going quite like the threat of annihilation, dontcha’ think?” Ed said, giving Al some crazy eyes.

“Forget time travel, my brother has been replaced with a maniac,” Al moaned into his hands. “I would at least have wanted to have a girlfriend before I go,” he whined.

“Don’t be such a sourpuss! There’s a perfectly good girl awaiting in your future.”

“Wait, really?” Al looked up at him.

“—oh shit, forget I said anything!”

“No way, brother! What’s the point of knowing the future if you’re not gonna tell me the important parts?!”

“Maaaaaybe I’m, ah. Fuck it, I just don’t wanna ruin it for you,” Ed told him. “Think of it like a surprise? For later. We’re definitely gonna cross paths with them sooner or later, it’s basically unavoidable, and you’ll just wow her with your charm and stuff because you’re the best and she’s got excellent taste, and unlike last time I won’t be really surprised how the fuck I missed all of... that.” He waved his hands, as if to impart on Al what ‘all of that’ stood for, though Al was admittedly still unclear as to what it entailed.

But he guessed that he could accept his brothers reasoning to not spoil that particular part of Al’s future, assuming that it was as inevitable as Ed made it seem.

And that was as far as the two of them got before Winry and Hughes returned. Al was a bit thrown, to be perfectly honest, with how fast Ed seemed to be able to switch gears—from contemplating their future, to messing around with Winry and Hughes.

“... but will you be okay to wait a little longer and go to Dublith, Al?” Ed’s question took him out of his head and back into the conversation.

“Yeah,” he promised. “Like you said, we need to face teacher soon anyway...” He suppressed a shudder, though not very well as he still heard himself susurrate in clinks and clonks. Normally, Ed and he would shudder in unison, but now Ed just hmmed and got a small smirk on his face, which just made Al reprimand him for not caring for his life enough.

“Now that’s just makes me curious, who’s your teacher?” Hughes butted in with a grin on his face.

“A normal housewife,” Ed replied.

“Fine, you don’t have to tell me,” Hughes said and Ed and Al snorted.

“Anyway, Winry, do you think you could get us three train tickets?” Ed turned and asked her.

“Sure, but why three?”

“Get the feeling you’re gonna insist on coming along in just a second,” Ed told her and then handed her the map which Ed had drawn their travel route on.

At first Winry frowned as she looked over the map, then her eyebrows shot up and she looked at Ed with a crazed look on her face.

“That’s on the way too...”

“Yep.”

“... and you’re gonna take me to—!”

“Yep.”

“Oh my God, Edward! _Rush Valley!_ ” she hollered and actually threw herself on him in a way that would make Major Armstrong proud. “Thankyouthankyou _thankyou_! Oh my God, I’ve always wanted to go!”

“I’m sorry, what’s in Rush Valley?” Hughes asked what Al was thinking.

“It’s the automail mecca!” Winry declared.

“It has a large iron deposit, the only one not completely militarised because of the harsh terrain, so people started to mine ore for automails,” was Ed’s much more informative explanation. “And then these crazy gear heads started to flock there.”

“ _This_ crazy gear head just fixed your arm, you heathen! But I’m way too excited, oh I have to call granny—and yeah I’ll definitely get the tickets, thank you again!” Winry said and like a wind she swept through the room and out the door.

“Hm,” Hughes said, putting a hand on Ed’s shoulder. “She’ll make a good wife, not as good as mine, but still.”

Instead of doing anything that Al would expect his brother to do in such a situation—namely blush and stutter—Ed went ridged and gave Hughes a cold look.

“Ever considered that I won’t make a good husband, though?” he said in an equally cold voice, that had Hughes frowning and Al wondering just what the future held for his brother.

For the first time since meeting him, Al saw Hughes rendered speechless, though he recovered quickly.

“Don’t be such a downer, Ed! You’ll change your mind when you get older,” he joked and patted Ed’s back even more.

“I see why Mustang gets so tired of you so fast,” Ed replied, less cold and more in that annoyed-but-in-a-fun-way tone that he often had. And so they completely glossed over _that_ landmine of conversation up until Armstrong arrived and Al pulled out the papers that he and Ed had been going over.

They had previously decided to entrust Hughes and Armstrong with most of what they knew, though it seemed that Ed would try and avoid bringing up the time travel.

At first they went over what they both knew, about the homunculus, their tattoos and such. Ed drew their portraits and then immediately stuffed them inside of Al, like he was afraid that someone would barge in at any second. To be fair, Winry was still out and it was hard to say when she would return, but Al thought his brother was a bit over-zealous about it all, though he refrained from saying anything. Better to tease him about it later, he thought.

While Hughes was fast on the uptake, it took a while for Armstrong to grapple with the fact that homunculi were even possible, let alone a tangible threat.

“You’re not gonna like what I have to say next, then,” Ed said, tapping the pencil in his hand restlessly. He started by drawing the array that he had seen in the room where he fought the twin armour and Lust and Envy had cornered him. Then he pulled out the same map he had showed Winry earlier and circled Lior and Ishval before looking up at Hughes and Armstrong. “Name every big conflict in Amestrian history.”

“Pop quiz?” Hughes joked.

“Nothing happens in a vacuum,” Ed replied and then impatiently started to name them himself, circling them on the small map. Armstrong added the few he knew, and soon Ed drew the same array he had seen in the lab onto the map by connecting the dots.

“But… _Briggs_ ,” Armstrong hissed, pointing at the map.

“The next target,” Ed said.

Armstrong looked completely shaken. Meanwhile, Hughes inspected the map even closer, frowning.

“You’re certain about this, Ed?” he asked in a far more serious tone than Al had ever heard from him.

“It gets worse,” was his brother’s reply. He then explained to them all, Al included, that there were in fact seven homunculi, all appropriately named after the seven deadly sins. And as if that weren’t enough, he told them that _both_ King and Selim Bradley were the oldest and youngest one of them.

Alphonse didn’t know what to do with himself. He had only seen the Führer in passing and didn’t even know he had a son, but he also couldn’t find it in himself to doubt his brother. On some insane level it _made sense_. The map. Ishval. Lior. The lab. Marco. He had had the feeling that they had only been scratching on the surface in their search for the philosopher stone, and he had always intuitively felt that there was something wrong with their government. Admittedly, Al had more thought it had to do with how a militarised nation inevitably waged war as a way to uphold its system, not that a nation used a militarised system to wage war for an even more insidious purpose than warmongering itself.

As before, Hughes was the first one to find his voice after Ed’s increasing number of ‘truth bombs’.

“How do you know this?” he asked.

“Are you asking because you don’t believe me, or because you don’t want to?” Ed said in a carefully neutral tone.

“You gotta admit that this is pretty outrageous, kid,” Hughes replied in a faux-jolly tone that even Al thought was forced, while Ed snatched the map back and hid it inside of Al. This time, Al had no problem with it, he really didn’t want to look at it for longer than he had to.

“I’m an outrageous kind of person. But that’s not really important. What _is_ important is that _none of you_ keep looking into this shit. I mean it! One wrong move and the homunculi will kill you for sure.”

“Why would you tell us then if it’s so important that we keep it to ourselves?”

“You’d try and wring it out of me anyway, Hughes, let’s not kid ourselves.”

“You’re probably right, I’ll give you that. But how do you know all of this, Edward?” he asked again with much more force than before, which made Al really nervous. The tension was thick between them and he didn’t know how to dissolve it because Hughes had always been so easy-going and kind, but now he looked at his brother like he was a threat and Al didn’t know how to convince him that he wasn’t. “I doubt that you had much time to chat with the homunculus between fighting and blowing up the building, and why would they share their plan with you just like that, anyway?”

Armstrong was obviously just as uncomfortable with the whole situation, and tried to step in. “I agree that those are really important points, Lieutenant Colonel, but you must calm yourself. Young Elric, please answer how you’ve come to know of this.”

“… fuckin’,” Ed hissed quietly, like a fuse to a bomb, just about to blow. “ _Fuck it!_ I’m sorry Al, I’m fucking done with this shit—only grandmas talk to me like I’m five anymore and I can’t with his fucking babyface,” he said, gesturing to Armstrong. “I’m not a shitass teenager _anymore_. I time travelled. Accidentally. So _I know_ because I _lived through it already_. That’s why.”

Hughes wheezed loudly. “Really?! That’s what you’re going with?”

“Hey, it’s not my damn fault that you don’t believe me! This is why I tried to avoid saying anything but you were all like ‘noooo, let’s just _heavily imply_ that Ed is in cahoots with the bitch-munculi that he just made up even though that makes NO GODDAMN SENSE because I can’t handle the _fuckin’ truth!’_ ”

Hughes glared. “I wouldn’t swear like that,” he said.

“How _the fuck_ would I know that—YOU DIED.”

“What?” Al whispered. “What do you mean, brother?” he said, but Ed paid him no mind.

Instead, brother grabbed Hughes by his collar and dragged him down over the little table, giving him the most threatening stare that Alphonse had ever seen in his brother’s eyes. It was not a look of furry like Edward usually used when he threatened, no, this was some emotion that Al couldn’t quantify of some far distant horror that put the fear of God (if there even was such a thing) in him and Ed wasn’t even looking at him. He couldn’t imagine what Hughes must be feeling.

“You listen to me Maes Hughes, and you listen good,” his brother hissed, not in the screechy voice that Alphonse was used to but in a much lower, steadier baritone. “You will _not_ have me explain to Gracia why her husband won’t come home a few days from now and have her make me swear to not let your sacrifice be in vain. You will not make me listen to her cries through the door when she thinks I’ve left. _Do you understand?_ ”

All four of them were still as statues, Armstrong’s eyes wide like saucers and Hughes heaving shallow breaths as he stared right at Edward. In the end Alphonse moved forward, though even his loud, metallic movement in the otherwise eerily quiet hospital room didn’t startle neither Hughes nor Ed.

“Brother,” he spoke softly. “Let him go, I think he got it.” Gently, he placed his hand over Ed’s automail with a dull clink, pulling on it lightly.

“No, he hasn’t,” Ed said, but he did let go of Hughes, though none of them looked away. “Last time the Führer walked in with a melon right about now and told us all to not trust anyone with the secrets we found at the fifth lab. Can’t promise any melons, but I’m pretty sure he’ll show up this time too.”

Hughes snorted and shook his head; now that Alphonse was paying attention he could see what brother had probably already noticed. Lieutenant Colonel Hughes used a practised ease in his manner that made people underestimate him, presenting himself as easy-going and not that serious—but after his reaction to Edward, the transition wasn’t as seamless as Hughes probably hoped it would be. The man was in denial, but there was no getting around that brother’s words had shaken him to the core.

He looked just about to counter brother’s outrageous claim too when, following a quick knock, the door suddenly opened and just like Edward had predicted, Führer Bradley stepped through.

“Excuse me,” the leader of the whole country said and all four of them froze again.

Looking back at it, this was the defining moment where Alphonse gave into Edward’s wild claims because, ultimately, reality was indeed just as wild as Ed claimed. Yes, he had believed in the sincerity of Ed’s claims from the start, but his version of what he _thought_ was the truth—and the claims that he had made earlier clearly supported that Ed knew a lot more than he had done yesterday. But this was tangible, quantifiable, provable truth that held up to scrutiny. Because here he was, his Excellency Führer King Bradley, in all his glory.

Major Armstrong stammered out a greeting and him Hughes giving a rushed salute while Edward shot up from his seat.

“Ah, keep your voice down. As you were,” the Führer waved at them and stepped further into the room.

“Your Excellency, how come you are here?” Hughes asked, still bowing, his voice surprisingly steady for the role coaster that they were all on.

“How come? Visiting the sick. Do you like melons?” he asked Ed, presenting brother with a melon in a basket.

“Yeah, thanks.” Brother hesitatingly accepted the gift, staring at it like he himself couldn’t believe it even though he had just predicted that he’d be gifted a melon by the Führer.

What followed was a most intense exchange between the Führer and the rest of them. Bradley seemed to know exactly what they had been up to up until now, from Armstrong’s poking around to Ed and Al’s research of the philosopher stone, though thankfully he seemed much more focused on directing them away from poking around further than accusing them of anything. Still, the amount of intel that Führer Bradley possessed was far too incriminating.

Then the Führer jumped out a window at the first sign of his bodyguards and they all watched as he walked away, until Hughes turned back to Edward.

“Fine,” he sighed. “Never thought I’d see the day I got lectured by a fifteen-year-old.”

Edward slapped his arm lightly. “Fuck you, I’m 26. And now you’ll get the fun job of telling the bastard Colonel about this,” he said in a light tone, before turning more serious. “Be fucking sneaky, Hughes, and I mean _real_ sneaky. They’ll be watching us all now, but you in particular, and Envy is a damned shape shifter. Wrath is a dick but he ain’t a liar—you can’t trust anyone in the military.”

Hughes gave him a tense smile. “That makes me feel so much better. But I gotta warn you, he might not believe me—this really isn’t what I first expected.”

Then Winry burst through the door with train tickets and distracted them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ed: I’ve come from the future to stop you from getting your ass killed.  
> Hughes: *confused math lady meme*  
> …  
> The main conversation between Ed and Maes was one of the first things I wrote on this fic so I’m real excited that I’ve finally gotten to share it with y’all :3


	4. Trial by Thunder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes. I couldn’t resist naming the chapter after myself. Sue me.
> 
> **WARNING** : The first scene deals in a lot of self-depravity, and so I thought it would be good to give a heads up. Please let me know if there’s another way you’d prefer that I put warnings on certain chapters—and please let me know if I should add a warning somewhere. Fanfics are supposed to be a good time, even when they deal in bad times.

The night before they were due to leave, Ed sat by his lonesome in his hospital room, the autumn night seeping through the open window. His head kept spinning, thoughts colliding inside of him, crashing, screaming for attention, and he couldn’t find and peace. As a kid, he was infamous for falling asleep whenever, wherever, however, though some of it definitely had to do with how he was sleeping for both himself and Al. The first year after Al got his body back, however, Ed experienced insomnia for the first time. He had thought it almost symbolic in a way. Al could finally sleep, and so Ed was kept awake, by his thoughts and chemical unbalances. As time went on, he developed certain strategies for dealing with it, and he had gotten a handle on it, for the most part, around the time he turned 23. Annoying things that he had to keep track off like no caffeine after six, no naps under any circumstances, get up at a reasonable hour, all that adult shit.

Becoming a teenager again had certainly thrown him off his rhythm.

It was so _weird._ He physically _felt_ some of the changes with a ridiculous amount of clarity—his emotions were all over the place for one thing. He hadn’t really reflected on how defining puberty actually was until he was going through it again, maybe because all the teens he knew became adults with him. Second time around, however, he could almost observe from an outside perspective how a tiny spark of irritation within him exploded into fierce anger within seconds, the most impossible tasks were his to conquer, yet the smallest inconvenience seemed insurmountable. It was all very contradictory, not to mention immensely frustrating.

But it wasn’t like he was above his emotions or whatever, though. He still felt them just as clearly, or perhaps, in a way, even more, since he had a way better understanding of himself now, compared to when he had been fifteen. The insights of adulthood had turned him into a goddamn crybaby at the touch of despondency now, though. It was fucking ridiculous how just the mere thoughts of some things immediately made an aching sense of sadness collect like a ball in his throat for him to choke on, and he just felt like bawling his eyes out. Or perhaps it was possible that it was all a gordian knot of emotions that he had brought with him through time, and the emotional whiplash that was puberty simply forced it out of him.

He also couldn’t help but to wonder what the heck happened to the younger him who belonged to this time. Strange as it seemed, Ed didn’t feel like a replacement, as if he and a younger soul had simply swapped bodies. The more he laid there musing, his memories over the last few days before the lab were still clear to him. He remembered details of his time crunching with Al, decoding Marco’s works, in additions to his trek through the Drachman winter wonderlands up to that cursed cabin. For all he could tell, it wasn’t as if fifteen-year-old Ed had just left, he was definitely still there… there was just _more_ of him somehow.

As for what he left behind… Ed couldn’t bring himself to theorise—contemplating his existence seemed more like a group activity than something to do alone in the dead of night.

Ed groaned softly and rolled onto his side and then sat up. Sleep was _impossible._ Usually, he tried to focus on a topic or two, something safe and comforting—mostly alchemy and other sciences to be honest—and plan and fantasise about that until he slipped into a cautious slumber, but that just wasn’t cutting it now.

Looking down at his hands in his lap, one glistened in the moonlight, while the other looked softer than he remembered. Despite all his fighting, he had earned the hardened skin after years of manual labour in his twenties, he noticed. He really had physically reset back to fifteen, he realised now that his hardened fingertips were gone.

But…

Ed flew out of bed and looked around the room in a kind of directionless rush of purpose. His eyes settled on the pile of blank papers that Al had left behind ever since Ed woke up, probably to give him easy access if he needed to make notes suddenly. Ed picked up the top sheet.

It was a kind of unnaturally white, study office paper, most likely taken straight from the hospital’s own supply, and it rustled lightly in Ed’s shaking hand.

He placed it down at his little extra table.

In a sense, it was probably a blessing in disguise that he was alone in this because he could honestly not tell for how long he just stood there, staring down at the white sheet without moving a single muscle. Then, oh so slowly, he raised his arms in an agonisingly familiar motion, the array clear in his head, and clapped his hands.

It was such a _rush—_ the electrifying energy coursing through him, the blue crackle of sparks as he led the energy into the paper. It assembled before him, just has he pictured, a small and scaley paper dragon. It only took a moment, and then it was done.

Ed’s sucked air into his lungs with a hiccup, forcing his awareness back to himself and away from the dragon. His eyes were clouding with tears anyway. Breathing seemed so hard.

Tentatively, he held the paper dragon in his hand. Its weight was barely noticeable, it was paper after all, and it felt stiff yet pliable in the way only paper did. And it crushed so easily when he squeezed it.

Then he parked his ass back onto the bed where he started, took his pillow into his lap, hunched, and finally— _finally_ —let out the guttering sense of agony that he had been carrying with him for God knows how long.

He had fucked up in so many fucking regards, hated himself for it, and he _hated_ that he would have to go through all of this again. The transformation had made this reality undeniable and he could no longer entertain the idea that he was into a week long hallucination.

But he couldn’t deny just how much he had _missed_ alchemy, either. Yes, it was his to give and he was going to do it again and again and again if he had to, there was not a single doubt in his mind, but _fuck!_ It was all too much and his feelings couldn’t fit inside his body no more.

At some point, Ed must have literally cried himself to sleep (first time for everything, huh) because Al woke him up as the sun was rising. And blessed brother that he was, he had brought Ed some coffee.

“Rough night?” he asked him, which made Ed wonder just what he looked like for Al to ask that first thing in the morning.

“You could say that,” he scoffed. “Don’t worry about it, just couldn’t fall asleep, I think I’ve been stuck in bed for too long.” No lies, but a lot of diversions from Ed. He really did not want to burden Al with all of his bullshit and apocalyptising and such, it was more than any fourteen-year-old should deal with.

Fuck, he really needed to find an adult he could talk to, didn’t he? Oh well, one thing at a time.

* * *

The way to Rush Valley was most uneventful and before he knew it, they had arrived. As for the valley in itself... well.

Rush Valley was so much fucking _warmer_ than Ed remembered. The canyon reflected the sun’s harsh rays down into it, pooling it at the bottom where they stood, the heat refracting right before them, making those waves in the air. Frying him alive. Still, it was a bustling city, despite the gruelling weather and terrain.

Winry was all over the place, as expected, with stars in her eyes and excited ‘eep’s with every new thing she found herself mooning over. It was pretty infectious and Ed found himself smiling and going along with her despite his sullen mood. And when he spotted the same man that he bested in automail arm wrestling before, well... who was he to mess with the timeline?

... He was such a little shit, wasn’t he? Ed mused to himself as the other mech-heads started to flock around them and Winry showed off her good work. Not that he particularly enjoyed their probing eyes and pulling hands, but he made do. Only...

“I’m not pulling down my pants for you in public, Winry!” he shouted when the mob around him intensified.

It had the desired effect. Winry went scarlet and the older men started to heckle and tease. In the middle of it all, Ed felt a familiar presence loom closer, and he turned just as she was upon him, snatching her wrist.

“Where do you think you’re going, huh?” he said to Paninya, giving her his most evil smirk.

Like expected, she went from surprised to grinning within the span of a second.

“You noticed, huh?” she said, his watch still in her hand and ready to bolt the moment he let up (as if he would ever).

“I’m familiar with your tactics,” he told her and that was all he managed to say before the rest of their audience caught up to their exchange. They started to reprimand Paninya for her thieving and not-so-subtly asking Ed to show her mercy when one of them realised just what the watch meant.

“Hey, it’s no problem,” Ed assured them, pulling his shirt back over his head. “Hey- _hey_! What’s your name, thievy?” he called and grabbed her again as she tried to slink away. He didn’t feel like going through the wild goose chase after her like last time, but he wasn’t about to let her go either and ruin Winry’s chances to get an apprenticeship—oh yeah and that baby that’s about to arrive.

“Haha, what’s it to you?” she shot back, looking increasingly uncomfortable.

He snorted. “Come on, thievy.” Ed dragged her to the nearest pub to most likely everyone else’s confusion, Al and Winry trailing after him. He only noticed when he had forced Paninya down in a seat beside him that this was the same place where he and Ling had talked for the first time. He tried to cover up his snort by handing Paninya a menu.

“Have your pick.”

“Wait, wait, wait. I steal from you, and you treat me to lunch?” she asked, but then immediately turned around and ordered about four different things from a passing waiter.

“You _tried_ to steal, you mean—oh! I’ll have same as her and something cool to drink,” he told the waiter. “How about you, Winry?” he turned to her and asked, as she was sitting across from him, next to Paninya.

“Uuuh...” she said, fumbling with her menu.

“The ham sandwich is really good,” Paninya suggested and Winry smiled in gratitude.

“Sounds good, I’ll have that then, thank you,” she said, and then glared at Ed as soon as the waiter had turned. “What are you doing?” she hissed at him.

“I’m hungry! Rule one of travelling is that you get a local to tell ya what’s good!”

“Am I the local in this scenario?” Paninya butted in happily.

“Yep. Ed Elric, State Alchemist,” he said, holding his hand out for her to shake.

“Paninya, local pickpocketer.”

“Neat. This is my brother Alphonse and the reason where out here: my friend Winry Rockbell. She loves automails.”

“I noticed! I wasn’t listening much, busy workin’ ya know, but you built his arm?”

“And my leg,” Ed added, clinking his metal hand to his ankle.

“Hey, then we can be leg buddies!” Paninya said, clinking bother her knees together through her pants.

“You also have automail?” Winry asked, her hesitancy rapidly melting away.

“Yeah, both legs!”

“C-can I see?” Aaaand then she was at it.

By the time their food arrived, Winry had abandoned her chair in favour of crouching right in front of Paninya, the two of them having a weird, rapid fire conversation.

Ed took a bite of the pasta dish Paninya ordered for them both and savoured the taste. The years of travel really had taught him well—always get a local to order for you.

“You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” Al whispered to him even though the girls were way too enraptured to hear him.

“Why do you think I insisted on lunch?” Ed gave his brother a grin. “Also, we didn’t wreck the town chasing her down, so, ya know, yay to food-based conflict resolution.”

“Really? That’s how it went?” Al sounded amazed in a way that only a teenaged boy could, it was so cute that Ed wanted to squeeze him.

“Kinda fun in retrospect honestly... she’s packing a small canon in her left leg by the way, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Wow!”

“Ed!” Winry shot up just then and leaned over the table with an intense look on her face. “Paninya promised to take me to her mechanic! I’m going!”

“Sure, but eat your damn sandwich first. You run on food, not enthusiasm.”

“Oh, right.”

While Winry scarfed down her lunch like the secret third Elric brother, Ed’s mind turned back to Ling, Lan Fan, Fu and finally Mei. It would be a while until he met them again, and part of him was looking forward to it. For one, they wouldn’t be able to have secret conversations right in front of him anymore because he fucking _learnt_ their garbage language for garbage people. (He had once said that line to Ling’s face and Lan Fan had, expectedly, materialised right out of the shadows to beat his ass.)

Ed had, however, never mastered the admittedly awesome art of sensing qi, or at least not to the same extent that his Xingese friends had. To be fair, Al had also been shit at it, even with learning alkahestry, which Ed had been unable to perform. Ed remembered that Mei had talked of the two abilities as two books in the same series, partly connected yet independent. That was why she had been sure that he could theoretically learn it, but maybe it was just his personality getting in the way of it all.

But on the subject of alkahestry. Maybe…

Ed shot up from his seat, accidentally interrupting Al and Paninya talking about… _something._

“Be right back!” he said, “I just needa get something real quick!” he called after him as he ran off, looking around for what he wanted. He quickly found a store like the one he had in mind—what better place to find a metal vendor than Rush Valley, eh?

The man in the shop thankfully didn’t think Ed’s rushed entry and demand for stainless steel seemed all too odd, and he was even nice enough to let Ed transmutate right there in the store, and so Ed made himself ten small kunai, blessedly lacking Mei’s tell-tale ribbons. Ed promptly paid and buggered off before the shop owner could ask what a teen-looking boy like himself were going to do with ten knives that he just materialised out of pure metal.

Ed considered testing if he would be able to perform alkahestry right there and then in the alley, but he figured that he had been away for long enough and he’d ought to get back before Al sent out a search party and Paninya tried to add even more to his tab.

Thankfully, he got back just in the nick of time it seemed, as Paninya was in the motion of calling the waiter back to the table. He rushed forward and asked for the check, much to Paninya’s chagrin.

“Where did you go off to, brother?” Al asked a little while later, as Paninya started to lead them up a familiar mountain road.

“Oh, just getting some metal.”

* * *

The visit progressed much like Ed remembered, though without Winry prying his watch open this time around the bend. A part of him felt a loss for the moment, but he also felt like he was past the hang-up in a way hadn’t the first time ‘round. For one, he knew that he didn’t need a written reminder to hold onto, though he couldn’t fault his teenage dramatics too much. It was kind of poetic, in a way, to carve his true intentions of joining the military into the token of his Faustian bargain. But in all honesty, if Ed had accidentally gone back further than fifteen, instead to say eleven, he wouldn’t burn his house down a second time. If only to spare Alphonse and himself the struggle of finding a new home.

But those thoughts were neither here nor there, and especially not relevant to the scene before him. Namely the thunderstorm and the bridge-less valley, cutting off the quickest way to a doctor. Not that Winry wouldn’t be able to deliver a baby practically on her own, but if he could help her, he would help her.

The rain poured down on him, thunder echoing above as a crude reminder of the threat of lighting suddenly striking down from the darkened sky.

“Al,” Ed said, eyes fixed to across the valley. “What’s your opinion on trials by fire?” The sky boomed loudly. “Or thunder, I guess.”

“Uh, I wouldn’t advice it?” Al said tentatively. “But I know you better than to try and stop you.”

Ed rolled his shoulders. “All I needed to hear.”

With a practised ease, he threw five kunai, one by one, across the valley, just where he wanted them. He would need to practice so he could do five at once like Mei, but he hadn’t had a need to throw five with precision before now—just the one. He made quick work of making the right circle and star as he had seen Mei do a thousand times and then, not giving himself a moment of doubt, he took a deep breath and put his hand down, calling for the mythical Dragon’s Pulse.

For a moment, nothing happened, but Ed continued to push, refusing to let the thunder dragon of the skies outroar the dragon of the earth.

Alphonse gasped beside him, and Ed opened his eyes, realising that he accidentally closed them.

He let out a delighted laugh that he didn’t even know that he had inside of him. He couldn’t believe it, even though he was the one doing it! First try! Fucking _take that,_ Mei!

“Who’s Mei?”

“Uuh, s-stuff it, Al, I’m making a bridge!” And he was! Successfully making a bridge, that was. It was a slow and careful process, but with the two sides of the mountain meeting in the middle, rather than one stretching toward the other, it actually worked.

It felt so endlessly invigorating, like if he just figured enough stuff out then there was nothing that he couldn’t do.

Was this how he used to feel back in his teens, whenever he succeeded? This rush of endorphins and hormones? he wondered. No fucking wonder he felt so miserable as he got older, this feeling was fucking addicting, he reckoned.

Ed shook his head and stood up, admiring his handy-work.

“It will definitely hold for now, but I’ll have to reinforce the bridge tomorrow or so, whenever the storm lets up—make it sturdier, ya know?” he told Domenic, who’s expression was just as sullen as it had been ten minutes ago. A man of true stoicism he was, huh. Except for the grandchild if Ed recalled.

“Don’t worry about, you say it’s fit for now?”

“Oh yeah, it’ll hold unless lightning strikes for a second time,” Ed assured him.

Domenic placed one of his big, heavy hands on Ed’s shoulder and gave him a light pat.

“Thanks, kid,” he said solemnly, and then jumped on his horse and rode towards the town. Roaring approval, coming from that man, Ed reckoned.

He sighed and turned to Al and Winry. “Come on, were getting soaked.”

Despite the bridge cutting down Domenic’s travel time exponentially, the baby waited for no one. Ed watched yet again as Winry got filled with resolve, still got his braid pulled as she roped them all together and maybe even more than before, he saw her doubting herself. We couldn’t have that, could we?

“Hey,” he said, gently taking hold of her shoulders. “You got this. I know you do. Don’t hesitate, just do.”

“Thanks Ed.” She smiled. She was steady in her step as she walked into the fold. Ed felt pretty proud of her as he watched her close the door.

In the end, the bridge did not make much of a difference; the baby didn’t seem to want to adhere to any kind of schedule—or maybe Ed had perceived the whole event in seeming slow motion the first time since he had remembered it lasting almost for forever, while now it felt relatively fast. What the bridge did help with was bringing the town’s doctor in quicker, as so he and Domenic barrelled in while Ed was picking up Winry from the floor.

Domenic, much like Paninya, paled at the sight of all the blood. The doctor was however seasoned in his profession and was able to take in the situation at a quick glance and calm Domenic before taking care of his actual patient.

The rest panned out much like Ed had hoped it would—Winry got her apprenticeship down in the valley, and the sky was clear the next day so Ed could reinforce his new bridge’s longevity.

Al had been quiet about the whole bridge thing. Even when Ed took some of Domenic’s scrap metal to make new kunai, he hadn’t said a word about it. Honestly, it was pretty annoying, not to mention nerve-wracking to have Al hover and watch every move he made with a scholar’s focus.

“Okay, _fuck_ it, Al, just ask!” he snapped once he fixed the final column. It was right then that he realised that this was what Al had been waiting for him to do all along. The little shit.

“Brother,” Al fucking giggled, “I’m just so taken by all this new information, I can’t even tell where to start! Like, for example, who taught you all that?”

“Knife throwing? It’s a skill any respectable man should have, I keep telling you.”

“You’ve literally never said that in your life,” Al pointed out.

“Oh, uh, not yet? I’m telling you now, then.”

“Oookay. But I was talking more about this sudden ability of yours to transmutate at a distance, however.”

“Well, you weren’t very specific now where you?” Ed quipped back as he slumped down in the shade next to Al.

“But tell me, then! Since when can you do that?”

“Honestly? Yesterday. I hadn’t tried it before. Most of what I know about alkahestry—yes that’s what it is—is from you, well, _older you’s_ ramblings.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yepp! And that’s all I’ve got to say about that! But I guess you wanna know what I was doing, too?”

“Heck yeah!”

Ed snorted at his brother’s aversion to swearing. Fuck, it was so cute, Ed couldn’t help but bump their shoulders together, even as the armour’s clonk was haunting. It didn’t matter though. He shouldn’t hesitate to be affectionate with Al just because he physically couldn’t feel it. He felt it in other ways, Ed reckoned.

And so, kunai in hand, Ed tried to explain the basic principles of alkahestry, based on what an older Al and older Mei had told him. He wasn’t the best of teachers, that he knew, and Al tried his best to keep up, though Ed saw him struggling. Mostly because all Ed had to say was very philosophical and hippy-feely, and Ed didn’t know how else to describe the pulse beyond a vague “You gotta feel for it.”

“I think you needa mull this over for a while, Al,” Ed told him after a while.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Another question, though.”

“ _Fine,_ but if you fry your brain then don’t come whining to me, okay?”

“Promise,” Al said, and then completely switched gears. If that armour could smirk, then that’s what his brother would be doing as he said, “Soooo…” in a tone that filled Ed with a special kind of trepidation. “You and Winry seemed pretty close now. What’s up with that, eh?”

“Pass.”

“What?”

“I’m not answering that. And it’s not what you’re fucking insinuating!”

That was a miscalculation on Ed’s part as he completely underestimated his brother’s inner romantic. Al took his words as embarrassed denial rather than the ‘YOU’RE WRONG’ that it actually was, and so he immediately began to tease the shit out of Ed.

Now, let it be known that Edward Elric loved his brother more than anything in existence. Therefore, Alphonse Elric could do no wrong in his eyes, even when he was being the shittiest of little shits. Therefore, Edward Elric, out of love, refrained from completely annihilating him, and instead took the mature approach to this situation. Namely, storming off into the mountains and punching rock until he could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, and then continued for a while longer.

He felt angry at himself for reacting so strongly, he realised as he tried to punch away his feelings. He couldn’t fault Al for reading a situation with the only information he had. It was Ed who kept the important parts to himself because… because he was afraid of how Alphonse would react to it all. Winry was… and had always been a really sensitive topic for him. But explaining all of that to Al was neigh on impossible if he was going to try and hold himself together.

Not that he was particularly good at keeping it together, as is, Ed reflected. He sighed, took a deep breath, and looked up at the sky. It was still midday, which gave them time to catch the train to Dublith.

He couldn’t really tell what Alphonse had made out of Ed’s dramatics when he returned to the house. Still, he threw his arm over Al’s shoulder good-naturally and said he’d need to get some lunch before they headed to the train. Hopefully, he could keep Al from making up _too_ many worst-case scenarios regarding his mood-swings. Ed knew his brother well enough to know that Al was utterly incapable of ceasing to worry. But if Ed could knock down the worry-by-volume to a lower level then that would be grand.

Soon enough, they would be facing Teacher together, and Al was bound to start catastrophising anyway. He just knew it.


	5. Just Dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my gosh, I crawl out of finals-hell to find so many kudos. It’s enough to make a woman cry. (Also, got the results back btw, guess who failed entry level Japanese! Aaaah _this bitch!_ No worries tho, I got a 計画*)  
> Anyway, this is the chapter that I didn’t intend to write—but I couldn’t stay away from my Roy-boy! It’s been 14k without him making an appearance and I can’t have that, not in my fanfiction!
> 
> *keikaku means plan in 日本語.

To Roy, Central was at once both strange and new, and strangely nostalgic. It was the city he had grown up in, where he knew some nooks and crannies with an echoing sort of clarity that only countless hours spent running around in them would bring. Yet it was not the city he had known back then. Be it from his current perspective which lacked a child’s naïveté or be it the constant rebuilding of Amestris capitol—or be it both—Central felt as walking through a dream he remembered, in the moments that he let it.

“Roy!” a familiar female voice called from across the street, shaking him out of his musings. For a second, Roy froze, half fearing for his life since the only times women called for him like that they were looking to either date or stab him—neither of which were all that appealing. But when he turned to greet his would-be assailant, he was immediately placated as the voice belonged to none other than the lovely Mrs Gracia Hughes.

“Gracia, what a coincidence,” Roy said as she crossed the street and came up to him. “It’s been too long.”

“It really has,” she agreed. “I cannot believe that you’ve moved here but you still haven’t come to visit!” She had a shopping bag on each shoulder, filled to the brim, with a leek sticking out of one, its escape only faltered by Gracia’s strategically placed arm over the bags opening.

“You can blame that infernal husband of yours—he’s been too busy bragging about you and Elysia to actually get around to invite me over,” Roy joked.

Gracia got a startingly resolute look on her face as she said, “Come over tonight, why don’t you?”

“Ah, I couldn’t impose on you like that,” Roy said, as a small sense of dread returned to him. While he had been over at the Hughes’ before, the invitation had never been given with such a force.

“Nonsense!” Gracia said with a thin smile, setting off warning bells inside of Roy’s head. “I get the feeling that you’ve been without a proper homecooked meal since last time you were over. I have to insist.”

“You have me cornered, Gracia, I must admit.” Come to think of it, it _was_ an oddity that Gracia would stumble upon him like this. There were far more grocery stores closer to Hughes’ home that wouldn’t lead him and Gracia crossing paths as they now were. Furthermore, while he knew Gracia to be a sincere and straight-forward kind of woman of tact, as opposed to the teasing machinations favoured by her worse half, she was still just as able to tell him things through carefully selected words and gestures. For example, Gracia had never insisted on a single thing in her life. She was much more of a ‘wait until you come to me’ sort of person, and so even if she were to invite Roy over for dinner, she would ask which day of the week would suit him best. For another, she would have let him go home and change out of his uniform before coming over.

Whyever Maes had enlisted his wife to be the one to fetch him, however, was yet to be seen.

“I presume that you will not let me out of your sight until you’ve fed me properly?”

“You presume correctly, Colonel. Oh, and congratulations on your move, by the way! I know Maes already said over the phone, but it’s always nicer to say in person, don’t you think?”

“I wholeheartedly agree.”

With a gentle prompt, Gracia let him take one of the bags, and together they set off to the Hughes residence. They were greeted by two grinning toddlers at the door.

“Hello, my lady,” Roy told the cutest one, “I’ve come from far away to bask in your beauty—your mother tells me that you’re finally of age for me to ask for your hand.”

“Uncle Roy!” Elysia shouted in delight and he just managed to put down the bag and catch her as she barrelled into him, physically demanding to be swept up in his arms. “You missed my birthday!”

“I am so sorry, princess, a horrid gremlin kept me away, toppling buildings and whatnot, you must forgive me.”

“Oh, okay then,” she said good-naturedly.

“Ah, what a sweet lady you are.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek and smiled kindly as she giggled, then kissed him back. With what he knew to be a nasty smirk, he turned to Hughes, still standing by the door. “No need to nag anymore, Maes, I have found my future wife.”

“… you!”

He smiled broadly, partly due to Elysia’s delightful screech as she wound her tine little arms around his neck, but mostly because Maes looked just about ready to shoot him where he stood. Revenge was the sweetest of wines.

Sensing a civil war, Gracia ushered them all inside and Elysia spent the time leading up to dinner going over every single thing that had happened during the birthday that he missed. To be frank, it was a tedious thing to sit through, but Roy also knew that there would be no peace until she had gotten it out of her system, and he _did_ feel the slightest bit out guilt at not visiting sooner. One of the things Roy found, however, was that Maes had apparently taken up adoption on a part time basis.

“It won’t do you well to adopt every single orphan from Resembool,” he told him lightly as they sat down just he two of them after dinner. “Or even just the blond ones. I fear that you’ll fill up the house quite fast.”

“Yeah, I’ll take that into consideration—but I think at least one of those hillbilly blonds have left the nest already, so I still got the space,” Maes joked with himself it appeared, since Roy had no clue what he was talking about.

“Any of that got to do with why you conscripted your better half to kidnap me in broad daylight?”

“Afraid so. But first! Pop quiz.” Maes handed him a pen and a fickle copy of a map, grinning. “I’m stealing his idea—it was all so dramatic.”

“Who’s idea?”

“Ed’s, of course.”

“Of course. Trust you and Fullmetal to get along by making me miserable.”

“Yes, yes, but now, back to school with you.”

“What’s my exam about?”

“History,” Maes said in an all too serious tone.

Roy couldn’t tell where any of this was going, but he went along with Hughes theatrics, trusting there to be a point. At first, it really felt like a pop quiz, Maes calling him to remember known to obscure dates and places, mapping them out like he was back in school. As he got further into drawing, however, he found that the severity of Maes’ tone somehow wasn’t serious enough.

“... Fullmetal unravelled this?” he heard his own voice whisper, not taking his eyes off the paper.

Beside him, Maes shifted, looking over his shoulder. “Once I saw it I couldn’t _unsee_ it. Going into work the day after was... difficult. But at the same time, I’m a little grateful, I’ll take knowing who the opposition is over ignorance any day of the week.”

“But who could have _done_ this?” Roy hissed. “It’s terraforming the whole country for—for a sacrifice!”

“See, this is why your over for dinner. Ed was pretty insistent that I tell this to you straight, by the way, that boy have no faith in subtext.”

“Oh lord, there’s more?” Roy moaned, dragging his hands over his face, pushed back his hair and leaned back in his chair. Maes had a pained smile on his face when he finally looked over. “Okay. Hit me.”

“This runs deeper than you imagine, Roy, certainly deeper than I first thought. And I would have looked into it further to bring you some more tangible proof, but Ed was... convincing when he told me not to. So, I decided to trust him.” Maes sighed deeply. “Okay, here goes, so, something happened in the fifth lab, Ed refrained from telling me exactly how but mostly because I don’t understand all that alchemy crap, and Major Armstrong and Alphonse both seemed to buy it, but anyway, the main thing is that your subordinate knew all of this and much more because he is a time traveller now.”

For a moment, time just stopped, as Roy went over what he had just heard. It didn’t compute.

“You must be joking.”

“Ain’t nothing funny about it,” Maes insisted. “He predicted that the Führer would show up at a civilian hospital with a freaking _melon_ just a minute before it happened. That was all too specific for him to have just gotten lucky as far as I’m concerned. But more importantly, everything he said made sense once I sat down and actually processed it.”

“Oh, like what?” Roy mocked.

“For one, our supreme leader is a homunculus.”

It was fortunate that Roy hadn’t done anything but breathing as he choked on air.

“ _What._ ”

... and so went the rest of his evening, more or less. By the end of it all, Roy’s head was spinning. The Führer, the brass—Maes had seemingly memorised a _list_ of people, all influential officers, of course, which he suspected to be in on this insane conspiracy. It was, quite literally, unbelievable. At the same time, he knew that Maes would never tell him any of this horse-shit if he did not truly believe it himself.

Therefore, it was something for Roy to think about. And perhaps pay his favourite (now local) bar a visit. But that would have to wait for a few days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maes: *hands Roy tin-foil hat*  
> Roy: Say sike right now.


	6. Telling the Teacher

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've re-written this chapter several times - don't know why but it seemed particularly difficult to get a handle on. With that said, I hope y'all enjoy it!

Now, Izumi Curtis was a lot of things. She was a master of alchemy, an undefeated martial artist, and above all, a loving butcher’s wife. While her life hadn’t exactly gone according to her younger self’s plan, she was happy in her little corner of the world, and only really had one big regret. But while she would constantly berate herself for her sin, she also recognised that she could not let it define her forever. It was a part of her, for sure, and her declining health kept her from a lot of her youthful ambitions, but that was the price she had to pay. Better to accept it and appreciate what you had than to dwell in the past until it consumed you.

Then again, the earlier list was not complete; she was also a teacher. Though, perhaps not a very good one, she reckoned, since one of her idiot students had run off and joined the military the minute she let him out of her sight. Why his brother hadn’t stopped him, she could not tell, but rest assured that the two of them would meet their reckoning the second they came within her grasp once more.

She waited for that day without giving it much thought. She was certain that they would cross paths again sooner or later. But her students must really have gotten themselves in some deep shit, when about a year after she heard the news of Edward’s enrolment, both brothers show up at her doorstep.

She heard a short knock on the door, which pulled Izumi away from her reading and went up to investigate. Through the curtain of her bedroom window, she could make out two figures, one a familiar silhouette. Still, she asked, “Who’s there?” when she made it to the door.

“Your good for nothing students!” said a muffled voice through the wood, undoubtedly Ed, and so Izumi took to the only sensible course of action.

She swung her door open and kicked him where he stood on her doorstep—only he managed to dodge her attack, jumping back, which admittedly was rather surprising. But she refused to feel proud or impressed before he answered for himself.

“Good for nothing is right! You thought you could just become a State Alchemist, huh! What do you have to say for yourself?!” she hollered across her front lawn at Ed.

Ed even had the audacity to grin at her, meanwhile the other figure, a big man in a suit of armour, shivered to the point that she could hear the armour rustling.

“Big libraries and access to the latest research!” Ed answered with a big smile, though he hadn’t let up his fighting pose yet. “And it’s really nice to see you, teacher.”

“Research in flattery and deceit, then!” she roared and moved to attack, reaching out to grab him. But Ed was much quicker than expected, dodging her as soon as she moved, hopping to the side with an acrobat’s fluidity. _Lucky for him_ , she thought, because he would be toast the second she caught him.

“Rude! I was being sincere!” Ed protested as he came to stand next to the armoured man.

Izumi could only scoff at him. Ed’s kind of sincerity, in all the time she had known him, had never been kind words or pleasant greetings—that was more his brother’s kind.

Which made Izumi wonder… “Who’s in the armour?”

“Ah! I-it’s me, Al-Alphonse!” the boy stuttered, pointing at himself.

How was that Al could fill out that whole armour while Ed was still a pip-squeak? She made a show of dropping her guard and greeted him pleasantly, only to throw him across her lawn… The hollow reverberation of the armour as it hit the ground rang clear like a church bell.

“You haven’t trained enough,” she told Al, while Ed tried in vain to stifle his giggles at his brother’s expense. What’s worse was that he didn’t even look all that intimidated, unlike his brother, when Izumi turned back to him.

Izumi was just about to give him the lesson of his life when, just as sudden as it always was, her insides contorted, pain shooting through her spine and stomach and she coughed up blood.

Ed’s demeanour changed immediately. His shit-eating grin fell away and he looked concerned as he came up and tried to fuss with her, even going as far as dragging her into her own house and strongarming her into a kitchen chair while he shouted for Al to find her medication over his shoulder.

She tried to wave the brothers away and take care of herself, but Al only pushed her medicine into her hands.

She hated it. Hated Ed’s big, concerned eyes and Al’s gentle worry. They shouldn’t have to do that for her, they were only children.

But when Ed offered her a handkerchief and gently asked, “Sig is at the store, yeah?” he did not look much like a child, or even a teenager. His face was young, for sure, but his look was worn and weary.

She nodded and he offered to go and fetch Sig for her.

“No, it’s fine,” she said. For a moment, she considered if she would call the brothers out on their odd behaviour right there and then, but Al’s body language still screamed of anxiety and Ed was looking at her like she was made of glass.

She _hated_ it.

“Take the big pot and boil some water,” she said instead. “You’re helping me with dinner.”

Ed moved right away, and she looked back to Al.

“Start peeling potatoes,” she told him.

She let the boys muck about in her kitchen for about five minutes, partly to actually take the rest and let her body recover, but also so she could observe them both.

While Al was somehow inside a hollow armour, she could still see the semblance of the boy she knew in his mannerisms. He still had the precise dexterity in his fingers as he gently peeled potatoes, she noticed. As for Ed, it took a little longer to figure it out, but she did. He kept his gloves on when she told him to cut up the vegetables, and she saw the uneven step of his walk.

By the time that Sig and Mason had closed the shop for the day and stepped into the kitchen, Izumi had sussed out all she could by just watching the boys and had since shoved them to the side so she could actually cook. She trusted boys to prepare food, but not cook it.

The way Ed had blatantly stared as she spiced the roast made her wonder if she should offer to teach them to cook properly, however. Making food eatable was a necessity of life that she knew they had, but making a meal delicious was a mastery they lacked. Between Sig and her, she could surely figure something out. It would have to wait until after dinner, however, since she was going to wring the truth out of the boys before the night was over.

It started simple enough, with the boys readily telling them all about what they had been up to since their last visit. She was intrigued to hear about their search for the philosopher stone, though she couldn’t see why chasing such a legend would make Ed become a State Alchemist.

“Didn’t we meet some alchemist in Central that knew a lot about stones?” Sig asked her.

“Oh right, that guy! He… he said his name was Hohenheim,” she said.

“H-ow did e look like?!” Al demanded, leaning forward, while Ed got a tired look on his all the sudden.

“Pretty tall… Blond, with glasses and a beard. I don’t know how old he was, but he was rather handsome.”

Sig tensed right next to her like the lovable man he was.

“Not as handsome as you, of course!” she assured him.

“… so he’s alive…” Al whispered, looking down at his untouched meal.

“You know him?”

“He’s our father,” Ed said in a harsh tone.

“The one that left? But that’s perfect, he might still be in Centrum, you could catch him!”

“There’s nothing he can say that I don’t already know,” Ed replied, his energy from earlier running out of him and slipping through the floorboards. “Besides, we’ll meet him soon enough,” he added, turning to Alphonse.

“Really?” Al whispered and Ed nodded, though he didn’t look happy about any of it, muttering something unintelligible but angry to himself.

Mason did his best to change the subject, asking about their alchemy.

“We have practised every day, just like Teacher told us!” Al said. “And we’ve been researching ever since we left Resembool.”

“That’s really nice? Can’t you both show a little?” Mason asked.

While Al was eager to, Ed rose from his seat with a sigh. Izumi saw how he wouldn’t let his brother see, but the second his back was turned, Ed deflated. It could be that the conversation about his father still lingered in him, but Ed seemed to drag his feet like he didn’t want to go outside, which didn’t really add up, she thought.

She asked Al to start, observing how he constructed his array, while still keeping half an eye on Ed who lingered in the background.

Al transmuted a beautiful horse and she took the time to examine it fully before turning to her other student.

“Ed?”

He sighed again and took a step forward. For a moment, he seemed to contemplate something, glancing down at the chalk still in Al’s hand, only to look up at Izumi a second later.

“Here we go.”

He held her eyes as he clapped his hands and crouched down and touched the ground. A moment later, a grand stone horse on hind legs sprung up, as Izumi’s heart sank.

While Al started to nag on his brother’s style, Ed just kept on looking at Izumi, waiting for her. It was rather unnerving to be honest, but then again, if he transformed without a circle then…

“Ed. Have you seen it?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, straight and true.

A part of her wanted to needle the truth out of him, bait him to tell her. But Ed’s tiredness hadn’t ceased.

“You have both been off since you came,” she accused them. “Ed, you have automail—I can tell from the way you walk. And Al, that armour is hollow, isn’t it?”

She looked at them both, from Ed who looked resigned to Al who was tense and anxious.

“Tell me everything,” she demanded.

Ed sighed and glanced at Al. “Where to even start…” he muttered.

They moved back inside, and the brothers spun her a tale of horror that she wouldn’t soon forget. Al did most of the talking, while Ed would cut in every now and then with an almost detached, clinical tone.

“Truth is very ironic,” he said, after Al had told them about waking up in his armour and rushing Ed off to the Rockbells. “I had hubris, so it left me with only a leg to stand on; Al longed for mum’s tenderness to no he can’t feel a thing, taking my arm for returning him to my side.”

The way she looked at him, she could tell that he somehow just _knew_ what she had done. It was unbearably unnerving, but the brother’s story wasn’t done, so she kept quiet.

Ed continued to describe how his to-be superior officer had found them just a few days later, and how he came to join the military. Izumi had half a mind to get on the next train and strangle the officer for exploiting the boys when they were in such a vulnerable position, but then again, Ed had had a whole year to think before he had taken the colonel up on his suggestion.

After telling Sig and her about his trials, he gave Al a questioning glance and when his brother shrugged, Ed looked back at Izumi with weary eyes.

“There’s more, of course,” Ed told them, forebodingly, “but you should have a say in how far down this rabbit hole you wanna go.”

Izumi took the time to go over Ed’s words, and indeed all of the brother’s actions since they had arrived. Out of all the things that still hadn’t been addressed, Ed’s sudden level of insight stuck out the most. Like the look he had given her when he performed the transmutation, as well the one just now when talking about Truth’s irony.

Yet, right now, his look was almost challenging, baiting her to say something.

“Something else happened,” she said. “Something that put that world-weary look on your face.”

“ _A lot_ of things happened for me to reach this,” Ed replied with a fake smile, gesturing towards his face.

“Don’t be smart with me.”

“I’m not,” he insisted.

So, a clue then.

Glancing over at Al, she saw him sitting straight as a steel rod, nervously looking between her and Ed, and occasionally throwing Sig a glance.

Again, going over the conversations throughout the day, she remembered one short, out of place exchange between the brothers which… could build to one insane hypothesis.

“When we talked about your father,” she started to say, gaging Ed’s reaction. It didn’t disappoint, she was on the right track. “You told Al that you’ll end up meeting him in the near future.”

“Depends on if he keeps to his schedule,” Ed said.

“How would you know it?” Izumi asked. “Al doesn’t—he was surprised to hear about Hohenheim being in Central, but you weren’t. Why?”

“Guess.”

Al started to fiddle next to Ed, quietly whispering in his brother’s ear, undoubtedly asking him to step down and just answer the questions, but Ed’s eyes were unwavering in a way that Izumi hadn’t really seen before.

She knew Edward Elric’s stubbornness. It was big, begging eyes, swears and tantrums, clenched fists and always getting up for every time he got knocked down. This was different—while Ed had always been an energetic and aggressive boy, she had also always been able to see right through him and get him to back down whenever. Except for now, all the sudden.

In the end, before she even had decided what to say, Sig said what she had been thinking.

“You’re older,” he said in his soft, no-nonsense voice, making them all jump. “You know because you’ve lived through it, just like you know what Izumi sacrificed.”

_Now_ , finally, Ed looked nervous, even skittish almost as he nodded.

“How?” Izumi pushed, and without a word Ed pulled out pen and paper and drew an array. He made an obvious effort to break it, rendering it useless the second the base circle was complete by drawing a harsh line across it all.

She couldn’t tell what was making Ed more keyed up: her and Sig’s reactions to him suddenly being a time traveller, or the thing that apparently had the power to bring him back in time.

“I shouldn’t have been able to activate it, but I did,” Ed said, sliding the paper over to her. “When I woke up I was fifteen and in Central again.”

“I take it you hadn’t been in Central when it went off,” Izumi muttered as she looked it over. It was a curious thing, rather interesting and she almost missed Ed’s dejected,

“Not even close.”

“Are you finally going to explain that then, brother?” Al spoke up. “You said you wanted to consult teacher about it, but you still haven’t explained why you are so sure that you couldn’t have set the array off when you touched it.”

Ed groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. “One thing at a time please, Al, I’m begging you.”

“What was it that you wanted to ask me about?” Izumi cut in before Al could say anything.

“It’s about that array. And like… Fuck, okay, don’t freak out, alright?” Ed said, looking at Al and then turned back to Izumi. “There’s always a price, right, for human transformation. That price can’t be negated, but since people are horrible, one possible way to pay the toll is by using a philosopher stone. Only, the stones are made of hundred, if not thousands of human souls, like actual human sacrifices. So, of course I would _never_ use that to get Al’s body back. I found another way.”

Ed steeled himself and looked at all three of them.

“You know how you have a gate, right?” he asked Izumi, and she nodded. “All alchemists have one, and it holds all the knowledge about alchemy—I’d theorise that it’s our soul’s connection to Truth, since we go through it to end up there and back through to return. Anyway, since everyone has their own, you can technically do whatever the fuck you want with yours. So… that was my toll. To bring Al’s body back. It’s waiting for him on the other side of the gates right now—because we’re brothers and we did the first transmutation together,” he said, looking up at Al who was staring at him. “That’s why I’m so fucking short and hungry and sleep all the time. I’m doing it for you too, until your soul can return to your body.

“My question,” he then said, turning back to Izumi, “is if you think that there might be something weird with my gate because of the time travel. I shouldn’t have been able to activate that array, it’s impossible since after I gave up my gate I’m cut off from Truth and literally _can’t_ do alchemy no more. I didn’t even end up there when I time travelled, and the whole thing was an accident, like, I fell through a floor and was, um, kinda hurt.”

The ‘kinda hurt’ sure did seem to do some heavy lifting if Ed’s tone was of any indication, but Al seemed to have stuck somewhere at the first part of Ed’s explanation.

“You can’t give up your alchemy for me!” he exclaimed, even going as far as shaking his brother, though Ed quickly batted him away.

“Fuck you! It’s mine and I’ll do whatever the fuck I want with it! I’ve literally already done it! No regrets! And I’ll fucking prove it to you and the world and anyone else who dares to fucking pity me again, just you watch me!” he shouted, his infamous temper finally rearing its head as he shot up from his seat, chair falling to the floor. “I just needa make sure I won’t fuck it up,” he added, looking back at Izumi for confirmation, and then he stormed off.

Curiously, Storm Edward went upstairs rather than out, and by the sound of it into the room that Izumi was going to offer them. Allegedly, he was a time traveller, though, so she couldn’t fault him too much for taking liberties when he was obviously upset.

One upset brother at time, however, since she couldn’t be in two places at once, and the younger one was silently shaking right in front of her.

“I guess I should tell you,” she said softly, catching Al’s attention, “since he apparently already knows. It took some of my insides, as my toll, when… when I tried to bring back my child.”

“T-teacher!”

“I’m telling you to be fair, there’s obviously a lot of things that Ed knows that you don’t, but that are hard for him to tell you. It all must been really hard for you.”

“I, ah, well, yes…”

“Idiot,” she said, getting out of her seat. “You don’t have to be strong.”

She hugged Alphonse’s steel container as it shivered and begged for forgiveness. She had failed Al as a teacher, but at least she was able to give him that much.

After a while, Izumi pulled back and started to ask herself what she was going to do with her other student upstairs, when the tell-tale sound of feet coming down the stairs shot through the house. Even though Ed kept a normal pace, it felt like an avalanche descending upon them as he re-entered the room.

He looked over at them all with a guarded look on his face.

“Ed, I was just about to check—” Izumi started to say.

“I’ma just air out some more things you needa know, like, just puttin’ it out there,” he muttered. His discomfort was readily apparent, but Izumi stayed in place since she didn’t want to disrupt him.

Yet, nothing could have prepared her for what came out of this mouth.

“We didn’t kill mum twice, and you didn’t kill your baby,” he said, his words reverberating through the room as the avalanche reached them. “I dug up the corpse of what we made to confirm it.”


End file.
